


the world forgetting, by the world forgot

by polarkai



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, F/F, Falling In Love, Memories, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 08:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20094541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polarkai/pseuds/polarkai
Summary: Lena Luthor has had Alex Danvers erased from her memory. Please never mention their relationship to her again.





	the world forgetting, by the world forgot

**Author's Note:**

> here enjoy this sad agentcorp au i wrote in like 3 days. you don't need to have seen eternal sunshine of the spotless mind in order to understand this fic.

if suddenly you forget me, do not look for me, 

for i shall already have forgotten you. 

— pablo neruda.

* * *

> _ **Present day** _

When Alex wakes up, it is alone, tangled in cold sheets in a bed far too big for just one person. The first thing she becomes aware of is the splitting headache she has, a dull throb just behind her eyes, spreading through the rest of her skull. 

“Fuck.” She grimaces as she sits up, rubbing at her temples. Had she gone drinking last night? She must have. Nothing else she can think of would make her feel this sluggish. 

Soft, orange light streams in through the curtains next to her bedroom, the carpet is warm under her bare feet as she slips out of bed and walks across the apartment.

Everything is too quiet. 

There’s no sound of coffee being made, nor is there the sound of the shower running in the bathroom, and Alex wonders why she had expected there to be. It’s just her here, and it has always been just her, since Maggie left— three years ago. 

She doesn’t know why the silence is so… _ harrowing. _

A feeling of overall wrongness lingers as she showers. It lingers as she brushes her teeth, and as she pulls on her uniform, and as she grabs the keys to her bike. It clings to her like ivy on a tree, gnawing at her, and she doesn’t know what it is that has her feeling like the whole world has tilted on its axis, but she wishes it would stop. 

Everything feels different. Everything feels _ off. _

There is an empty bottle of whiskey on the bar, and Alex frowns at it. _ You drank too much last night, _ she reasons with herself. _ You’re just hungover. _

The door to her apartment shuts with an audible click, and she doesn’t look back.

* * *

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Alex Danvers is one of the most impulsive people to ever exist. Always has been, always will. If it could, it would be carved into her gravestone, and no one would be surprised if her impulsivity was the reason it was being made so soon in the first place.

But another truth, a truth also known by everyone, is that Alex Danvers loves her job. Almost too much. 

Last month alone, it’d taken both J’onn and Kara threatening to use their powers on her to convince her to go home when she had the flu. Even then, lying in bed with messy tissues scattered on the blanket, she had just worked from home despite Kara’s pleads to get some rest. 

So it comes as a shock to everybody, but mostly to Alex herself, when she drives right past the DEO building that morning.

It’s the feeling that’s driving her to do so. Alex knows this immediately. She can feel it in the back of her head, like something desperately trying to fight through the brain-fog she had woken up with this morning, and suddenly she can’t focus on anything but the urge to just—

_ Leave. _

To go somewhere where nobody would even think to look for her. To get on a random train and just leave, to go wherever it takes her, to not worry about anything. It’s possibly the most impulsive thing she has ever done outside of her work at the DEO, but she’ll do anything to get rid of the emptiness clinging to her.

By the time she arrives at the train station, the urge hasn’t diminished a bit. The platform buzzes with early morning commuters, people Alex has never seen before, dressed in coats and hats and scarves to protect them from the freezing rain that comes down in buckets from above them.

Alex looks down. She’s wearing only her uniform and her leather gloves. She hadn’t even noticed the rain or the cold. 

_ Ironic, _ she thinks. She’d noticed the cold inside, but not out. 

Over the intercom, a staticy voice calls out, “Last call for Malibu,” and Alex’s head whips up. _ Malibu. _

She hasn’t been there since she, Eliza, and Jeremiah had gone on vacation one year before Kara had arrived. 

Alex finds herself running before she can even think about it, shoving past strangers and grumbling out rushed apologies without even sparing them a glance. It’s two platforms down and she can already hear the train getting ready to depart, but the urge is so strong now that she feels she _ needs _ to get on that train. She _ needs _to go to Malibu. 

She makes it just in time, squeezing through the small opening. The train doors slide shut behind her with a hiss, and Alex leans back against them for a second before her eyes shift over the compartment. It’s mostly empty, and the few people aboard barely acknowledge her as she makes her way towards a seat.

It’s only once the train starts moving that she thinks, _ shit. _

Colonel Haley answers her phone call with a dry, “Ah, so you are still alive. Is there any reason why the DEO’s director is not at work today?” 

Alex resists the urge to flinch at her tone. “I’m sick,” she explains, adding in a fake cough for emphasis. “I’m sure the DEO will still be standing by the time I’m back, Colonel.” 

Colonel Haley huffs. “Very well, Director.” Then, as an afterthought, “Get well soon.” 

It’s probably the most insincere _ get well soon _Alex has ever heard come out of a person’s mouth, but she can’t find it in herself to care that much. “Thank you, Colonel.” 

She spends the rest of the train ride flipping through her science journals. As the world outside is swallowed by the storm, Alex buries herself in her own old ramblings of alien cell biology and regenerative medicine. Right as the train is pulling into the station in Malibu, Alex flips to the next page, and—

_ That’s odd. _There are pages that have been ripped out, leaving nothing more than a jagged edge of notebook paper in the crease. She doesn’t remember ever ripping them out, or any reason she would have. 

The train grinds to a stop, the doors opening back up with a hiss. Shaking her head, Alex shuts the journal and forgets about it. 

* * *

There’s a woman on the beach.

Alex watches her discreetly as she wades ankle-deep through the water, not caring that her leather boots are getting ruined. If she were going to lie, she’d say that she only noticed the woman because of the strange attire — a black dress that clings tightly to her body, five inch heels, and jewelry that looks as though it costs a thousand dollars alone. 

But no, that’s not why Alex noticed her. She noticed her because somehow, she’s the only other person on the beach for miles, it seems like, and even from a distance, Alex can clearly see that she is beautiful. Breathtaking, more like. 

She’s drawn to this woman. There’s just something electric about her, something almost… familiar, like they’ve met before.

But Alex is sure she would’ve clearly remembered someone like_ her. _

There’s an itch under her skin, begging to be scratched, something in the back of her mind nagging at her to go up and introduce herself. She’s always been comfortable with making the first move, and that was proven when she first kissed Maggie all those years ago, back in the alien bar in National City. 

But for some reason, she can’t bring herself to approach the stranger walking along the beach in front of her, heels digging themselves into the sand with each slow step she takes. 

Suddenly the woman turns, as if realizing she’s being watched, and Alex nearly trips into the water when they lock eyes. She quickly looks away, towards the sunrise, an orange and pink hue stretching along the horizon. She stares at it, unblinking, until her eyes burn with the strain. 

Fucking _ stupid, _she internally kicks herself. Way to charm a woman, Danvers. Freak her out by staring at her for too long. 

When she glances back, the woman is gone. Eventually, Alex settles down on a set of large rocks on the shore, and reaches up to massage her temples as her head begins to throb again. 

* * *

The woman from the beach is sitting on the train when Alex heads back home. 

She’s four seats away in the same compartment, and Alex is hyper aware of the feeling of green eyes on her, boring into her as if she’s trying to read her mind. For a split second, Alex is briefly terrified that she can — it’s not such a stretch considering her own mentor and father-figure can, after all.

Does the woman know she’s thinking about her? Alex hopes not, struggling to keep her eyes off the stranger across the train but ultimately failing. It should be concerning, really, just how bad Alex is at the moment to pretend like she doesn’t know she’s being watched, but she can’t help it. The green eyes on hers are so enticing, and her own eyes lift up to meet the stranger’s almost of their own accord.

_ Oh, fuck. _Alex sinks down in her seat slightly as the woman suddenly pulls herself up from her seat, carefully making her way towards the seats directly in front of Alex. 

“I’m sorry, we haven’t met before, have we?”

Alex inhales sharply at the first sound of the woman’s voice. Smooth and soft, with just a hint of an Irish accent. Hearing it makes her dizzy. “Uh…” 

_ Nice going, Danvers. Ever so eloquent. _

“I only ask because I’m sure nobody who actually knew me would have the nerve to follow me around like you’ve clearly been doing.” It’s a bold statement, one that makes Alex’s eyebrows arch in surprise, and she coughs. 

“What? N-no! I’m not— we haven’t met, but I’m not following you, I promise. I don’t know why I would.” 

The woman cocks a perfect, dark eyebrow at that, as if she can’t believe what Alex has just said. Alex shifts awkwardly, the seat suddenly much harder and much more uncomfortable than it was a few seconds ago. And— God, did it just get a lot hotter in the compartment? 

“You don’t,” she says, sounding more like a scoff than a question. 

Alex shakes her head, confused. “I— No. Are you famous or something? Do you… regularly have stalkers?” 

Wracking her brain for any memory of the woman’s face, trying to figure out if she’s seen her on TV or maybe on billboards somewhere in the city, she comes up with nothing. Not even a small glimpse of passing by her on the street. 

And yet, something about her is so oddly familiar it makes Alex unsettled. 

The woman _ laughs. _It’s startling enough to make Alex’s face heat up, feeling like there’s something she’s missing, like an inside joke that she’s not in on. “Lena Luthor, CEO of L-Corp in National City.” 

There’s a hand outstretched towards Alex, one with perfectly manicured black nails and two silver rings on her fingers. Her grip is firm when Alex reaches up to shake her hand, palm warm, fingers soft. Suddenly self-conscious, Alex wonders if she can feel the callouses on her own hands, the roughness of her palm.

“Alex Danvers, Director of… the government.” 

She cringes. _ What the fuck? _

Lena’s eyes gleam with amusement as she withdraws her hand. “The whole government, you say? Impressive.” 

Alex squeezes her eyes shut. “I mean— I’m FBI.” 

Almost immediately, the amusement is sucked out of Lena like Alex’s words are a vacuum, leaving her stony-faced, eyes hardening. “FBI,” she repeats. “And you say you don’t know who I am? God, of course they’d have you watching me.”

Alex reels like she just got whiplash. What just happened? “What? No, Lena, that’s not why— I’m not watching you. Why would the FBI have me watching you? I just met you.” 

“Oh, save it, Director,” Lena snaps, already moving to another seat. “You expect me to believe you’re FBI and you don’t know who I am?”

“Lena, I really don’t,” Alex insists, and the confusion must clearly show on her face, because Lena pauses for a moment, examining her. “_ You _ approached _ me, _remember?” 

“You truly don’t know who I am?” she asks, skeptical. Alex shakes her head. 

It’s then that something seems to shift between them. Gone is the hardened, angry woman Lena had transformed into just in the span of a few confusing seconds. Her eyes soften, face relaxing from it’s tense, pinched expression, and there’s a noticeable change in the way she holds herself, less on-alert and more calm, if not just as confused as Alex. 

“Oh.” She blinks, looking away from Alex for a second to glance out the window at the world passing them by. They’re coming up to the station in a few minutes. “I apologize for snapping at you so harshly. It’s just hard to believe that someone such as yourself wouldn’t have… heard about me.” 

“It’s okay,” Alex assures her. “This was just a whole big misunderstanding.” 

“It was,” Lena agrees, nodding. 

Alex hesitates before asking her next question. “Why would the FBI be watching you?” 

Luckily, Lena doesn’t snap again this time. Instead, she looks down at her hands in her lap, sighing heavily. “I’m sure even if you don’t know me, you must know my brother, Lex?” she inquires. 

Alex’s eyebrows shoot up. “Lex Luthor?” At Lena’s nod, she blows out a harsh breath. “Oh. Well, now I understand why you blew up at me.” 

“I truly am sorry about that,” Lena tells her again, blushing, but Alex holds up a hand, waving the apology away.

“No, hey, I get it. Don’t worry about it, really. So you said earlier you’re the CEO of L-Corp? Did you get that from—“ 

“Lex? Yes, of course. With only one goal in mind, of course. To make _ useful _ technology for the city. I’d like to create things to help both humans and aliens alike. Make a name for myself outside of the tarnished _ Luthor _ legacy.” 

Alex nods, and can’t help the spark of interest that lights up in her chest at Lena’s words. “You work with tech?”

It must be obvious how excited she is at the prospect of talking science and technology, because Lena smiles at her, amused. “I do. In fact, I graduated from MIT and worked with an old flame of mine on developing a cure for cancer using nanotechnology.” 

Alex can only stare, and Lena’s smile widens, eyes gleaming. “You're drooling, Director.” 

Her hand shoots up to wipe her mouth, but ultimately finds nothing there. When she glares at Lena from beneath her eyelashes, Lena only laughs. 

The train grinds to a stop next to the platform, and Alex stands up. 

She doesn’t know if she should say goodbye or not. She doesn’t know what the protocol is for this kind of thing, meeting a stranger on the train who just happened to be Lex Luthor’s sister, whom Alex had somehow never heard about. 

Lena is the first one to decide between the two of them, sparing Alex a glance as she exits the train. “It was nice meeting you, Alex.” 

“Uh— you too,” Alex stammers, stepping out onto the platform and heading towards her bike. Then she stops, whirling around to face Lena again. Before she can talk herself out of it, “You don’t need a ride, do you? I have an extra helmet.” 

Lena looks at the bike, then looks back at Alex. Looks at the bike, then back at Alex. “I trust this isn’t just a creative assassination attempt?” 

It’s said with so much casualty, without even flinching, that Alex takes a step back. “What?” 

Lena just waves her concern away. “Never mind. You are a safe driver?”

“One of the best,” Alex assures her. 

“Good,” Lena says, grabbing the helmet out of Alex’s hand. “Try not to kill me before my next conference in Germany.” 

“Will do,” Alex promises. 

The ride to Lena’s is only twenty minutes from the train station, but to Alex it feels like it lasts forever. She’s starting to regret asking a beautiful woman to ride on the back of her bike, because with every sharp turn and sudden brake, Lena’s arms squeeze tighter around her torso.

“This is me,” Lena shouts in her ear as they slow down, pointing towards a tall white apartment building in the center of National City. 

“Holy shit. You have a penthouse?” 

“Three, if you want to be more specific,” Lena corrects her, seemingly not noticing the way Alex’s jaw drops. She slides off the bike with ease, and Alex watches as she starts towards the front doors of the apartment. It’s only once Lena is halfway towards the building that Alex realizes she should be walking her up, jogging up and quickly falling in line with Lena’s own strides. 

When they make it to the front doors, Alex stops where she is, and Lena turns around with the door halfway open, frowning when Alex makes no move to walk in. “Well?”

Alex shifts her weight to her other leg and glances back at her bike. “Well what?” 

Lena motions towards the building as though it should be obvious, rolling her eyes. “Are you going to come up?”

* * *

Inside Lena’s penthouse, Alex is almost afraid to touch anything. She sits, stiff and awkward, on the large leather sofa in the living room, eyes wandering as Lena pours them both drinks at the bar. 

Lena, Alex decides fairly quickly, is not a very sentimental person. 

It's remarkably tidy at least, with three neatly organized bookcases against the wall and a large glass desk in the corner that's home to only a desk lamp, a tablet, and a laptop. The walls are barren save for a mirror, some modern looking paintings from artists that Alex has probably never heard of, and a few hanging lights. They're painted a light grey; in the brightness of the late afternoon sunlight, they look almost white.

The lightness of the room is offset by the dark violet colored curtains. The windows are large and take up most of the other wall, giving Alex a perfect view of National City below, and she just barely catches the faint smell of lilac from somewhere in the penthouse. 

  
It's pathetic in its desperation, Alex can’t help but think, as she takes it all in. But she understands it, too, the cloying façade of normalcy; she's practically perfected it. With her own family, there is no actual normalcy, since Kara arrived. When compared to her sister, Alex’s whole person is Lena’s penthouse and it’s scarce sentimentally — almost loathsomely plain in its existence.

Something like sympathy stirs inside of Alex.

  
For a moment, she nearly allows herself to say something — to bridge the gap between them, to get rid of the silence that’s settled over the room. But the moment passes, and Alex slips back into herself as soon as Lena is walking back into the living room, two glasses in her hands. 

“I hope you like scotch.” 

“Oh, you have no idea,” Alex jokes as soon as she takes the glass from Lena’s hand. She closes her eyes as she brings the glass to her lips, already feeling the anticipation of the delicious burn despite not having taken a sip yet. 

Her eyes fly open as soon as the liquid touches her tongue.

“Oh my _ God.” _

It must come out much louder than she intended it to, because Lena looks at her with wide eyes, alarmed. “Is something wrong?”

“No!” Alex is quick to shake her head. “I just don’t think I’ve ever had scotch this good.” 

Lena chuckles. “Well I would hope not,” she says, just as Alex takes another mouth-watering sip, “It’s a two thousand dollar bottle—“ 

—and Alex promptly chokes on her drink. 

Droplets of golden liquid splatter against the white fur rug beneath her feet as she coughs and sputters, struggling to take in oxygen. She feels Lena’s hand against her back, pounding on it, trying to help her as she finally sucks in deep breaths. 

“Are you alright?” 

_ No, _ Alex wants to scream. _ I just spit two thousand dollar scotch all over a beautiful woman’s expensive rug. _

Instead, she just clears her throat, wincing at the much less pleasant burn in her chest as she manages to pull herself together. “Yep, I’m good,” she chokes out, voice hoarse. “Fuck, your rug—“

Lena brushes her concern off. “Oh, don’t worry about that, it was a gift anyway.” 

Somehow, that makes it seem worse, but Lena genuinely doesn’t seem to care.

“Tell me where you’re from,” she suggests instead, resting her chin on her fist, and Alex sputters again for a moment. She just embarrassed herself in front of a billionaire CEO and yet, the same billionaire CEO wants to know where she’s from? 

“Midvale,” she answers, gingerly leaning back into the couch as she observes Lena herself getting comfortable. “It’s about an hour and a half from here, and my mom actually still lives there. What about you?” 

“Metropolis,” Lena says, swirling her drink around in her glass. “Though I must say, I don’t miss it one bit.”

Part of Alex wants to ask why, but the other part of her actually understands social cues and knows when a question is not to he asked. This is one of those times. So instead, she asks, “Do you like flowers?” 

Lena’s eyebrows pull together in confusion. “Pardon?”

Alex gestures towards the various plants sitting on one of the bookshelves, vibrant and colorful. “Oh, no,” Lena smiles fondly— and if Alex isn’t mistaken, a little sadly. “It’s not my favorite thing, but a… an old, good friend of mine used to bring me flowers a lot. I don’t know why I keep watering them, honestly.” 

Alex shrugs. “My ex-fiancée liked bonsais. Loved them, actually. She forgot one at my apartment when we broke up, and even weeks after she left, I’d still take care of it.” She chuckles at herself. “And I didn’t even like bonsais.”

If Lena has any reaction to her use of female pronouns, she doesn’t comment on it or give anything away, and Alex is grateful. 

[And maybe just a little hopeful, too, but she’s not going to admit that.] 

“Do you still have it?” Lena questions, shifting closer. 

“Oh no, it died after about two months. Apparently over-watering is a thing,” Alex frowns, laughing at herself as she raises her glass of scotch back to her lips. 

“The irony of that,” Lena muses. “That something can die simply because you care too much.” 

Alex sinks into the leather cushions, lips pursed as she glances at Lena’s contemplative look. “I mean— I guess it’s better than not caring at all, don’t you think?” 

It’s what happened with Maggie, and every other woman that had come after. There hadn’t been enough to keep the spark alive. Like a fire, they had burned passionately and brightly in the beginning, until they were left with nothing more than a pile of burnt out ashes. 

It’s only after a few seconds that she realizes Lena is staring at her, not having said a word yet. “What? Do I have something on my face?”

Lena shakes her head, lips parted slightly, eyes flickering from Alex’s eyes to her mouth. Something between them shifts, a certain kind of tension settling over them, and Alex swallows past a dry throat.

“You’re sure we haven’t met before?” Lena asks, leaning so close that Alex catches wisps of the subtle perfume she’s wearing, a hint of cedarwood paired with the honey-like scent from the whiskey on her breath. It makes Alex’s head spin.

“I-I’m sure,” she responds, voice reaching barely above a whisper. “I know we haven’t, because I—“ She hesitates. Lena inches closer to her on the couch. “I would’ve remembered you.” 

Alex doesn’t know who moves first, but then she and Lena are kissing, pressed up against each other on the couch. Lena’s mouth is soft and eager. Her tongue brushes lightly along Alex’s bottom lip, and a tiny spark of desire flits low along Alex’s belly. 

Then it’s over as quickly as it began. Alex wrenches herself away from Lena, shuffling back on the couch and standing on suddenly weak knees, eyes wide. “I— I should go. It’s getting late and I have work tomorrow, so…” 

She ignores the way Lena’s eyes shoot towards the clock above TV on the wall, clearly displaying the time as just a few minutes after five in the evening.

“Right,” Lena says, looking back at her with pursed lips. Alex’s face burns red. “I really hope you’ll give me a call sometime, Alex.” 

When Alex gets back home, the first thing she does is take a cold shower and smack herself out of it.

The next thing she does, naturally, is call Lena. 

“So you finally decided to pick up the phone and do it,” is how Lena answers the phone, a smirk evident in her voice. Alex leans against the kitchen counter and smiles. 

“Can I come back?” she blurts out before anything else. Then she cringes at the way that sounds. _ Desperate. _She nearly hangs up right then and there, scrambling to explain and make herself sound less pathetic. “It’s just— I know I left kind of suddenly earlier. I’m sorry. I want to come back, pick back up where we started maybe?” 

For a few long seconds that feel more like hours to Alex, there’s only static between them. She swallows, throat dry. Had she made the wrong move? “Are you still there?” 

“Yes,” Lena answers quickly. If Alex didn’t know any better, she’d think Lena sounded just as eager. “Yes, I’m still here. And yes, you can come back. I’d like that.” 

Alex has to resist the urge to pump her fist in the air victoriously. “Okay,” she says, trying to downplay the excitement in her voice. “Let me just grab my mail and I’ll be right over.” 

“Alright. I’ll be waiting.” 

* * *

> ** _Three days earlier_ **

It’s two days before Valentine’s day and there’s a break-up song on the radio, and all Alex can do is laugh bitterly, because of _ course _there is. It’s just her fucking luck. 

_ “We're all victims of the way it hurts when the love is gone, _

_ Forever is not for everyone—” _

She slams her fist into the radio so hard it stutters, but it doesn’t stop. She fumbles with trembling fingers to turn the volume down, to turn the radio off completely, and only manages to do so once she’s already pulled up in front of Kara’s apartment complex.

Kara is watching her from the window. Even from four stories up, Alex can see the furrow in her brow, the way she watches Alex with so much worry radiating from her person that it’s almost palpable. 

Alex makes no move to get out of the car. She sits, staring out the window, watching the raindrops slide down the glass and merge together. It’s only when the passenger side door is yanked open that she tears her attention away from the rain, looking at Kara with half-lidded eyes. 

Her sister says nothing, waiting for Alex to speak first. A hand comes down to rest on her forearm, thumb rubbing there in a soothing motion. Alex lets out a shuddering breath, looking down. The box she’d wrapped and went over to give to Lena for Valentines Day still sits there in her lap, taunting her.

“I think it’s really over between us.” 

If Kara notices the crack in her voice, she doesn’t mention it. “Oh, Alex…” 

There is grief in the form of barbed wire wrapped around her lungs, piercing her with every breath she takes. “Winn and James are upstairs,” Kara tells her. “I’ll make you some coffee.” 

“With extra whiskey,” Alex grumbles as she climbs out of the car. Kara doesn’t even argue as they head upstairs, Alex storming through the door to her apartment without so much as a knock. Winn and James’s heads whip up at her entrance, and from the look on her face, they must realize what’s happened, because they both glance at each other worriedly. 

“Uh— Hey, Alex, what’s up?” Winn tries asking, his voice tilting upwards from nervousness. 

He has beer in his hand. Alex snatches it right up and takes a sip before Winn can even protest. A moment later, she hands the now-empty bottle back when Kara brings her a mug of coffee. 

“I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think,” Kara attempts to placate her. “Why don’t you tell us what happened?”

“It’s like she didn’t even recognize me!” Alex rants, hands curling around the warm mug and taking a sip. Kara had, for once, indulged her, and she relishes in the slight burn of the alcohol in the coffee as it slides down her throat. “She just— she just looked right through me, like I meant nothing to her. It was like she didn’t even _ know _me anymore.” 

It’s been almost an hour since she was at L-Corp and the look on Lena’s face is still burned into Alex’s mind, the total lack of recognition in her eyes, in her voice. If anything, the only emotion she’d displayed had been a mix of confusion and indignation after Alex had burst into her office, Jess rushing closely behind, shouting, “Director Danvers, you can’t be here!” 

“I’m sorry, Miss Luthor,” Jess said as soon as Alex entered the office, “I couldn’t stop her—” 

And there was a kind of nervousness clear in Jess’s voice that Alex has never heard before, even from the very first time she’d bypassed the front desk and made a beeline straight for Lena’s office, before they were even together. This was different, and Alex had wondered for a brief, but terrifying moment, if Lena had threatened to fire her assistant if she let Alex anywhere near her office. 

“Hello,” Lena had said, taking in Alex slowly, carefully, as though she could be a threat. “Anyone who wishes to speak to me must schedule an appointment first. It’s why I have an assistant.” She motioned towards Jess, who was looking between them with anxious eyes. 

The phone had rung before Alex even had a chance to say anything more. Lena answered it without sparing her a glance, and that’s when Jess had grabbed hold of her elbow, pulling her towards the hall. “Director Danvers, I think you should leave. Now.” 

Kara, Winn, and James all exchange a look. Alex rubs a hand down her face. “How could she do this to me?” she asks them, as if they’d know the answer.

“Maybe this is a sign, Alex,” Kara suggests gently. From their spots on the couch, James and Winn both nod in agreement, watching Alex stand from her seat and pace the floor. “Maybe this is her way of telling you to move on.” 

_ Move on. _From Lena? Alex can’t even imagine a world where she had the strength to do that. She wouldn’t want to do that. She’d rather love Lena and suffer than not love her at all.

“No,” she shakes her head, adamant. “I _ know _her, Kara, she wouldn’t just shut me out like that.” 

But wouldn’t she? For weeks, they had been building towards the break-up that had finally come in the form of deathly silence from Lena for a whole week, despite all of Alex’s calls, texts, video calls— hell, she’d even _ emailed _ her, getting no reply. 

“Alex. Maybe you don’t believe it is, but at least _ take _ this as a sign.” 

“You don’t understand,” Alex snaps, collapsing back onto the end of the couch. “You never understood. When Lena stopped talking to you, you just… let her.” 

Kara nods solemnly. “You’re right. I did, because that’s what she wanted, Alex.” 

“She doesn’t want this,” Alex insists. “I know it. She _ can’t _ want this.” 

For the past few minutes, both James and Winn had been silent as she and Kara went back and forth. Now, she sees movement in the corner of her eye, and turns to see Winn grabbing for his bag. “I can't do it, guys,” he mutters, shaking his head furiously. 

Alex watches as he hastily digs around in his bag before coming up with a crumpled envelope, bent at the corners and the white paper already stained brown in some spots. When he holds it up, Kara and James immediately burst out yelling in a mix of jumbled words and pleads for Winn not to do what he’s about to do. 

“She can’t see that!” Kara exclaims, at the same time James says, “Winn! Don’t even think about it.” 

Their panicked shouts make every hair on Alex’s body stand straight up, cold dread suddenly infiltrating her bones. Blood singes and boils in her veins, and she suddenly finds herself growing so angry and confused she can feel her entire body trembling with the force of it. Spurred on by the shaky, pale look of sheer guilt on Winn’s face, she finds her resolve cracking.

“What the fuck are you two talking about?” she demands, glaring at both her sister and James. “What can’t I see?” 

Winn goes to stand up, but James steps forward, pressing a hand to his shoulder and pushing him back into the couch slightly. His voice is gruffer than usual when he warns, “Winn, you can’t show her—”

“Shut up, shut _ up!” _ Winn shouts, startling everyone in the room. He stands up and practically shoves the envelope into Alex’s hands, his own shaking slightly. “I— I can’t do it! I can’t, I’m sorry. She needs to see it.” 

Kara and James fall silent after that, unable to look Alex in the eye. When Alex looks up at Winn, his eyes glisten with unshed tears, and suddenly she’s very, very afraid to open the letter.

“Read it,” he tells her, adam's apple bobbing as he swallows hard. “You deserve to know.” 

The envelope is addressed to Winn from an organization Alex has never heard of before, a place called _ Lacuna. _ The letter inside is thick, like cardstock, the words on the page written in bold black ink. 

_ “Dear Mr. Schott, _

** _Lena Luthor_ ** _ has had _ ** _Alex Danvers_ ** _ erased from her memory. Please never mention their relationship to her again. _

_ Thank you.” _

Alex drops the letter as if she’s been burned. “That isn’t fucking funny, Schott,” she glowers, rising up out of her seat. Despite this, there is laughter bubbling up in her chest, the hysterical kind that only comes out during a full-blown panic, when she can’t believe what’s happening. “This is a joke, right? She wouldn’t just—“ 

“It’s not a joke, Alex.” It’s Kara who speaks up from behind her, voice so quiet Alex almost doesn’t hear her. “It’s real. James and I each got a letter too.” 

And suddenly, all the air has been knocked out of Alex’s lungs, and she crushes the envelope in her hand. The panicked laughter dies on her tongue. “What?” 

“It’s true,” James agrees, nodding somberly. “About a week ago, Lena came to me asking about the place. My sister had gone there after her deployment, trying to forget someone who’d died in the war. Lena knew this, and she knew I could tell her about it—”

“And you just _ let _ her?” In seconds, Alex’s hands are clutching at the collar of James' shirt, tugging him down to her level with ease. “Are you really _ that _fucking jealous of us, Olsen, that you just let her do this? Erase me from her memory? Did you fucking drive her there too?” 

The words burn coming out of her throat. _ Erase me from her memory. _Lena has no idea who she is. She has no idea what they went through together, what Alex had meant to her, how much she’d loved each other. 

James holds his hands up, “Whoa, hey. That’s not what this was about—“ 

“Fuck you, James!” 

“It wasn’t his fault, Alex!” Kara cuts in, tearing her away from him and holding her back. “Even if he hadn’t told Lena where it was, she would’ve found it anyways. And he tried to talk her out of it. We both did.”

Alex’s throat closes up. “But she still—”

“She had her mind made up, Alex.” 

“Bullshit. She wouldn’t…“ She shoves past them, stumbles towards the door of Kara’s apartment and grabbing for her keys. Just as she wrenches open the door, two strong hands grab her by the shoulders to pull her back, and automatically her elbow flies back to slam against James’ jaw. 

“Alex, stop!” Kara shouts, coming up to grab Alex’s arms to prevent her from striking James a second time. “Just stay here, you’re not thinking rationally right now. _ Please.” _

Throughout all of this, Winn had kept deathly silent, face in his hands. At this, he glances up, and he and Alex lock eyes over Kara’s shoulder. The look on his face is what makes her deflate, the fight seeping out of her, and she slumps against the door. 

“She erased me.” 

It’s not a question anymore, but a statement. It’s torn from Alex’s throat painfully, leaving her breathless, and she looks over at Kara. “She erased me,” she repeats numbly. 

Kara nods. She’s crying now, sniffing. “I’m so _ sorry, _ Alex. Just… promise me you’ll stay here tonight. Please. Promise me you won’t do anything right now, at least until you can actually think about whatever it is you want to do.”

Alex has to force the words out, shutting her eyes. She wants to scream. “Okay. I promise.”

* * *

The next morning, Alex is out the door and on her bike before Kara has even fully woken up, Winn’s letter in her pocket.

From the name and what this _ Lacuna _place apparently does, Alex had expected a tall, sleek office building, or maybe some kind of large hospital. A building similar to the DEO, acting under the guise of something completely normal, when inside, it’s anything but. 

What Alex does not expect is a small, run-down looking clinic on the outskirts of National City, something so easy to miss she might’ve ridden right past it had she not been so overly aware of her surroundings. It’s something she might’ve thought to be an underground abortion clinic in the fifties. 

The waiting room is full of people. It’s not as much of a shock to Alex as it probably should’ve been, given that it’s the day before Valentine’s Day, but seeing the way a few of the people are crying and sniffling makes her uncomfortable, so she stalks right up to the front desk instead of waiting in line like the rest. 

“Um, excuse me, ma’am, you can’t just—”

“Director Alex Danvers, FBI,” Alex cuts her off with a quick flash of her badge, successfully shutting her up. Before the receptionist can even react, Alex digs the letter out of her pocket and slams it onto the desk. The receptionist’s eyes go wide, and she brings a hand up to her mouth, gasping. “Oh dear, this is a problem. Oh, dear.” 

Still mumbling, the woman rolls back in her chair and grabs the phone from the wall. “Doctor Mierzwiak… Yes, at the front desk. Please hurry. There’s been an… _ incident,” _ she says, looking up at Alex with apologetic eyes.

A man that Alex assumes is Doctor Mierzwiak walks in just a few seconds later, wiping his glasses on his white coat. “_ What _ is the problem, Mary?” he demands, just before his eyes flicker from the receptionist, to Alex, and then to the letter. The color drains from his face in an instant. “Oh, my… Why don’t we talk in my office, is that alright?” 

Alex nods numbly, following him down the hall. Once she’s seated in the chair across from his desk, the doctor removes his glasses, sighing deeply and regretfully as he examines the letter. “You should not have seen this, I sincerely apologize.” 

Alex clenches her jaw. “So this isn’t a hoax.” 

“Unfortunately not. Our files are confidential, Director Danvers, so I can’t show you evidence. Suffice it to say, Miss Luthor was not happy, and she wanted to move on. What Lacuna does here is to provide that possibility…”

As his words sink in, his voice begins to fade, and Alex slumps down into the chair. 

She wonders with a heavy heart if Lena had taken a page from her book and did this on pure impulse, or if Lena had thought long and hard about it. 

Either way, Lena has no idea who she is.

“…now we understand completely if you would like to sue, but I must warn you that since Miss Luthor had fully consented to having the procedure done, it would not—”

“I don’t want to sue. I want it done,” Alex cuts him off. Jaw tense, she sits up straighter, resolute. “I want to get the procedure.”

* * *

The stack of papers taunts her. 

She rolls her eyes. It doesn’t matter; she’s read through everything already, signed her name at the bottom with a flourish, and leaned back in the almost too-comfy chair. There’s two garbage bags full of things that remind her of Lena, just as the doctor had told her to bring the last time she was here. 

She’s signed away all their memories and all the accompanying emotions. The anger, the despair, the _ love. _ There’s no going back now. 

Alex tries not to focus on the way that thought makes her feel hollow. 

“Alright, Director Danvers,” Mierzwiak says. Alex doesn’t look up at him. It’s _ hard _to look up at him; she sees in his eyes the toll this kind of job has taken, the harrowing act of erasing pain and despair from every person to step through his door. 

Alex wonders if the doctor sees anything in her own eyes. If he can see just how deep the emptiness goes, the shame, the agony. 

An orange plastic pill bottle slides across the desk. She takes it in her hand, examining the one white capsule inside. “You will need to take this pill tonight before we can begin the procedure. It’ll put you to sleep, allowing us to access your memories without interruption.” 

Alex stares at the pill for a long time. “Is there any risk of brain damage from this?” 

Mierzwiak leans back, a sad smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Well, technically the entire procedure is a form of brain damage. But I assure you, you’ll be fine. It’s on par with, say, a night of heavy drinking, for example.” 

Alex could almost laugh. _ Already used to that. _

“Now, we’ll have to go through everything you own that has some association with Lena. Everything you’ve brought with you today. We want to empty your home... your _ life _ of Lena. We’ll use these things to create a map of Lena in your brain.” 

Alex leans forward in the seat, throat tight. “So I look at everything and you’ll erase my memories of them?” 

“Not just your memory of the items you’ve brought,” he explains. “We will erase all the memories you have of Lena. Permanently.” 

_ Permanently. _The word bounces around in Alex’s skull.

“You’ll have to carefully and deeply examine each object in order for me to log your memories into the system. Try not to let anything slip past you so that we might not catch it during the procedure. What a mess that would be, right?” 

The joke falls flat, though Alex does chuckle this time. It’s more of a nervous laugh than anything else. Her hands are shaking, and she grabs onto the arms of the chair to stop it. “Right.” 

“This is the hard part. After this, it’s smooth sailing from here on out.” 

A pair of Lena’s heels goes first. Then a photograph of the two of them. Pages of her science journals that they’d both scrawled notes in. Each object comes with an agonizing memory that Alex nearly trembles thinking about. By the time it’s over and the last object is removed from in front of her, Alex needs a fucking drink. 

“Now what?” she asks, watching Doctor Mierzwiak carefully as he finishes logging the memories into the computer and starts the mental map. 

“Now, you go home. Take the pill at the specified time and leave your apartment door unlocked. My technicians will come in while you are asleep and connect you to the equipment, and the procedure will start without you even knowing it.”

The words nearly get caught in her throat, but she manages to force them out, shifting uncomfortably in the chair. “And when I wake up?” 

He peers at her from over the rim of his glasses. “When you wake up, Lena Luthor will be wiped from your memories, just as you wanted.”

The ride back home feels almost surreal. Like a dream. Like she’ll wake up in the morning and Lena will still remember her, and none of this had ever happened, and they’ll laugh about it over morning coffee and Alex will feel more silly than anything else. Not this grieving shell of a person. Not this hopelessness, this burning anguish.

She knows that won’t happen. When she wakes up, she won’t have any memory of Lena, and that’s—

That’s what she wants. 

Parked in front of her apartment complex, Alex stares for a long time at the picture of Lena on her phone, still set as her lockscreen; she hasn’t deleted it yet. It’d taken Lena by surprise, in a rare moment that she was truly, genuinely happy, head thrown back as she laughed at something Alex had said.

_ You’re beautiful, _she’d said, once Lena had realized what had happened. 

_ No. Alex, delete it, _ Lena had demanded, grabbing for the phone and failing when Alex shoved it back into her pocket. _ Delete it! _

Even now, Lena taunts her.

The phone crashes onto the asphalt below as Alex throws it down, screen cracking, the glass creating a spider web effect across Lena’s smiling face. She’s in a daze as she climbs off her bike and enters the apartment, not bothering to lock the door behind her. It’s already nine, and the technicians are supposed to be here in an hour.

The pill bottle is burning a hole in the pocket of her leather jacket. She digs it out, fumbling slightly as she twists the cap off and dumps the pill into the palm of her shaking hand. 

_ You’re too impulsive. You can’t keep making decisions when you’re angry. You can’t keep throwing yourself into dangerous situations without thinking. _

Alex rolls the little white capsule between her thumb and index finger. How many people had told her that? Kara, her mother, J’onn. Pretty much everyone she’s ever known, if she’s being honest. 

The last person to tell her that had been Lena. It had been the only time Alex had nodded in agreement, had taken the first step and said, “You’re right. I’m too impulsive.”

_ Doesn’t matter anymore, _she thinks as she pops the pill in her mouth, swallowing it before she can talk herself out of it.

* * *

It’s the strangest thing, Alex thinks, watching herself from the outside. She’s seen herself on security tapes, home videos, and footage during missions, but never like this. Never like a ghost that’s haunting her own body, both somehow being _ and _watching.

It’s mostly dark inside Lena’s penthouse when she comes half-walking, half-stumbling through the door after another fight. The worst part is that she doesn’t even remember what the hell they were fighting about. Everything’s been rubbing her nerves raw for the past few weeks, and, really, it was just easier for Alex to snap than hold it in.

Now, she regrets it. Because Lena—

Lena never takes that shit sitting down. Alex knows that. It’s part of the reason she fell in love with her in the first place, but now it’s turned more into a curse than a blessing. 

When she walks into the penthouse, the first thing she notices is the eerie silence. Lena is home though, that much is evident by the light coming from the crack under the bedroom door. Lena’s back is to her, shoulders tense, and she’s _ crying. _One of Alex’s leather jackets is in her hands, and she shoves it into an overnight bag.

Through the fog of inebriation, it takes a few long moments for Alex register what’s going on, and her heart instantly goes into overdrive, panic and desperation clawing at her to put a stop to this before it can get too far. 

“Lena…” It comes out as a hoarse whisper, and Alex hates how pathetic and needy she sounds, but there is a place and time for pride and this is not it. “Lena, let’s just talk about this.”

When Lena looks up, it is obvious that she’s not in the mood. It is also obvious that she’s been crying, her eyes rimmed with red. Her nostrils flare just a little, and when she speaks, it is as hard and stony as the expression on her face. “You’re drunk. Again.”

_ Again, _ she says, with so much disdain that Alex’s head reels. 

She tries again, stepping into the room slowly, carefully, as though Lena might lunge at her. “Lena, please, if you just let me _ explain— _” 

“Don’t, Alex.” Lena snaps, effectively cutting her off. She picks up the overnight bag and tosses it. Alex catches it on instinct, a burning behind her eyelids. “It’s bad enough that you lied to my face, _ and _that you thought it was a good idea to turn up at my house drunk off your ass. Don’t make it worse by trying to justify your actions. Just go.” 

So Alex does. Lena doesn’t look at her as she leaves, nor does she call out to her, tell her to come back, to stay. She gets all the way to the street before thinking about turning back, half-expecting to see Lena watching her from the window, but she isn’t. She’s gone, and so is the penthouse itself, crumbling and disappearing as though it was never there at all.

Emptiness has carved a home in Alex’s chest. That was the last time she’d ever seen Lena when Lena still remembered her.

“I’m erasing you and I’m happy!” she screams, eyes burning. “You did it to me first! I can’t believe you did this to me. You hear me, Lena? By morning, you’ll be gone! A perfect end to this_ fucking _ perfect story, right?” 

Lena doesn’t answer. The street lights flicker out from above her with each step she takes, until she’s swallowed by the darkness.

* * *

_ “Alright, first one’s gone.” _

_ “Hey, maybe we’ll finish this up early!” _

_ “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get your hopes up.” _

* * *

Alex stares at the dark red liquid swirling around in her wine glass and struggles to think of something to say to Lena. They haven’t spoken since they arrived at the restaurant, and it’s beyond past uncomfortable now, with Alex having already excused herself to go to the restroom twice just to escape the tension.

The restaurant around them is buzzing with life, a stark contrast to their own table. Most of the people around them talk and laugh and enjoy each other’s company, chatting over food and drinks like they should be, with only a few other tables as quiet and bored as Alex and Lena’s.

When did they become the dining dead? 

“How is the salad?” Alex finally asks, peering up at Lena as she pokes at the lettuce with her fork. 

“Good,” Lena responds, and that’s that. The conversation’s over already.

“I have a funny story from work today, actually,” Alex tries again, pathetically. Across the table, she watches as Lena pours herself another glass of wine and downs it all in the span of a few seconds.

“Do you now?” she asks, dabbing her lips with a napkin. Alex shifts awkwardly in her seat.

“Yeah, Brainy was doing some—” She sighs, picking at her food. “You know what? It wasn’t that funny. Never mind.” 

The silence settles over them once again. 

Alex is almost thankful when her phone rings a few tense moments later. She answers it with an eagerness that is far from subtle, if the look of vexation that Lena shoots her over the rim of her wine glass is of any indication. “Director Danvers. Yes, I’m on my way. See you there.” 

When she hangs up, Lena won’t look at her. “Is that the DEO again?” 

Alex sighs, already irritated. “It’s my job, Lena—”

“Yes, of course it’s your job,” Lena hisses, red lips curling up in a snarl. It draws the attention of a few people from the surrounding tables, and Alex feels her cheeks heat up. “It’s always your_ job, _isn’t it? Or did you simply ask Kara to call you and give you an excuse to leave?” 

The accusation makes Alex’s blood boil. “I’m _ trying _here, Lena. And part of the problem is that you don’t seem to trust me anymore. And if we don’t have trust, we have nothing.” 

Lena scoffs. “This isn’t about trust, Alex. You know what it’s really about.”

“You don’t get to argue with me about my job. I don’t say shit about you spending every night in the office, do I?” she retorts, throwing down her napkin and rising from her chair with a harsh scraping sound. “I’m leaving.” 

“Alright.” Lena is still not looking at her. “I’ll see you at home.”

Somehow, the way she says _ home _doesn’t sit right with Alex. It’s like it’s not real anymore. Her movements are animatronic, her voice flat, monotone. “We can’t keep doing this.”

Alex knows this, of course.

“It’s going, Lena,” she tells her, looking around. The restaurant slowly begins to resemble a vignette photograph, darkening at the edges, closing in. “It’s all going. The fights, the anger, the disappointment. It’s all being wiped.” 

Lena finally looks up at her then, and their eyes lock from across the table. Alex’s whole body aches with despair_ . _

“I’m glad,” Lena says, quiet. She is fading away before Alex’s eyes.

“Me too.”

* * *

They’re fucking in Lena’s office. 

It’s harsh and rough and it _ hurts, _just slightly beyond the delicious kind of hurt that Alex craves, as Lena’s nails dig into her back. She can feel the blood dripping down her spine, and the throbbing in her neck from where Lena had sucked rough bruises there just moments before. 

When the tables turn and Lena’s thrusting her fingers into Alex, they lock eyes for just a second before she’s closing them again, burying her face in the crook Lena’s neck. Eye contact has never come easy for Alex during intimate moments, and this is no exception. 

She wonders if Lena saw the same kind of desperate, sad longing in Alex’s eyes that Alex saw in hers. She wonders if Lena knows that she even saw it, if Lena was aware she was vulnerable enough for Alex to see it in the first place. 

_ I miss you, _ Alex longs to say, even though Lena is right here. _ I miss you so much that it hurts. _

Nothing comes out. 

Afterwards, she doesn’t notice until there are wet spots on the shoulder of Lena’s blouse that she’s crying. Before Lena can notice it too, she yanks her pants back up and starts walking out. 

“Alex,” Lena calls out, but Alex is already gone. 

The world falls apart around her, and L-Corp dissolves along with the rest of the memory. 

* * *

“Do you know _ The Velveteen Rabbit?” _Alex blurts out suddenly, taking Lena by surprise.

They’re under silk sheets, legs tangled together, and Alex can’t focus on anything but_ Lena, Lena, Lena. _

Lena shakes her head. “I can’t say that I do.”

“It was my favorite book when I was a kid,” Alex explains. “My dad used to read it to me, when he was still here. It's about these toys. There's this part where the Skin Horse tells the Rabbit what it means to be real.”

“This already sounds utterly ridiculous,” Lena says bluntly, and Alex laughs, reaching over to brush a strand of hair from her face. 

“No, no, it’s… I never really appreciated it when I was a kid. Now, I… I get it.” 

“So what _ does _horse tell the rabbit?” Lena asks her, rolling her eyes at herself. “God, that sounds like the beginning of a terrible joke.” 

Alex rolls over on her back, slipping out of the sheets for a moment. She hears Lena protest before she’s slipping back under them a minute later, holding a worn copy of the book she had on her bookcase. 

“‘Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse,” she begins reading from the page, fingers trailing below the lines as Lena’s eyes bore into the side of her head. She clears her throat. “'It's a thing that happens to you.’ 

“'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit. 'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'” She stops reading for a moment, throat closing up. Her fingers tremble where they’re pressed against the words, and she feels Lena shift beside her. Licking her lips, she turns the page. “'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’ 

“‘'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. ‘It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.’"

By the time she’s finished reading the passage, Alex can feel her eyes burning with tears that she forces not to fall, self-consciously reaching up to wipe them away with her finger. “It’s silly, I know—”

“It isn’t,” Lena argues, shaking her head. “Not at all.” 

Alex turns her head to face her. Lena’s fingertips are gentle against her jawline, hand cupping her chin and pulling her towards a pair of soft, pliant lips. She feels herself melting into it, just as she had that night, warmth spreading throughout her entire body.

God. She’d loved Lena in this moment, so much that it _ burned. _ There was no mistaking the swell of warmth in her chest for anything else; she’d felt inverted, like just being with Lena had warmed her insides. 

“You’re Real, Alex,” Lena whispers against her skin, kissing down her jaw, down her neck. Need sparks low in Alex’s belly, and suddenly she feels like she needs to be closer to Lena, impossibly closer, in order to satisfy it. 

_ This is it, _ her body seems to tell her. _ This is the moment where you fell. _

Something in her soul settles just as the memory starts to fold in on itself like a piece of paper, and she thinks, _ Oh. _ And then, _ So this is what it feels like to be whole. _

Lena feels thinner in Alex’s grip somehow, then. She can sense, even with her eyes clenched shut, that Lena is drifting away from her. Alex is losing her, but this shouldn't be a moment that she _ ever _loses. 

It shouldn’t be disappearing right in front of her.

“No! Let me keep this one,” she begs, her voice barely above a strained whisper. “Just this one, please…”

She wraps her arms around Lena and buries her face into her neck, willing this feeling of cold dread, of _ regret, _to go away. But the only thing that dissipates is Lena herself, just before the rest of this moment does, too.

* * *

Lena is staring into her empty fridge. “You need to stock up on some actual food, Alex. You can’t keep eating takeout every night.” 

She gasps when Alex’s arms loop around her waist, pulling her into her front, Alex’s lips coming down to press against a pale neck. “Maybe I could just eat you instead,” she purrs, only to get pushed away by Lena.

“Quiet,” Lena admonishes only half-heartedly, rolling her eyes and flashing a smile that makes Alex dizzy. “Now I’m sure you earn enough money as a director to buy some actual groceries. What could a simple banana possibly cost, ten dollars?” 

Alex pulls away just far enough to look Lena in the eye, mouth agape. “Are you— are you serious?” 

When Lena speaks, it sounds as though she’s going through a tunnel. “What? Is that not right?” 

Alex shuts her eyes with a laugh, pressing a kiss to the side of Lena’s head, right at her temple. 

* * *

There are moments that seem to rush past her quicker than others— early morning coffee dates, impromptu trips to the science museum, arguments in the car, sex in the middle of the stairs to Alex’s apartment complex. 

Right now, Lena’s hand is cold in Alex’s as they cross the frozen river. While it’s barely ever cold enough in National City for there to be snow, much less for the water to freeze up, this January is a different story. 

So, naturally, Alex had to have some fun with it. 

“I swear to God, Alex, if I fall because you insisted on taking such a _ childish _detour, I’m going to—” 

“You won’t fall!” Alex insists, laughing at the look on Lena’s face as she struggles to stay upright on the ice. “How can you _ possibly _ walk in five inch heels all day, but you can’t walk on a little bit of ice?” 

“Walking on ice is nothing like walking in heels,” Lena huffs, holding onto Alex’s arm so tightly that she’s afraid she’ll pull them both down. 

She does, in the end, drag them both down onto the ice. Somehow, Lena is just as graceful even when she falls on her ass. Alex? Not so much. 

They lie side by side on the ice a few minutes later despite the cold seeping into their clothes, Lena’s head resting on her chest, and Alex feels like… “I could die right now, Lena. I’m just _ happy. _ I’ve never felt like this before, with anyone.” 

She’s exactly where she wants to be. 

When she turns her head, Lena is already leaving her, and Alex’s chest floods with panic. She lurches up, onto her knees. 

_ No, no, no… _

“No. Take me out! I change my mind,” she begs, shouting up at the crumbling, fading sky. At the people taking Lena away. “I— Fuck, I don’t want this anymore, I want to come out! Please! Call it off!” 

Her pleas go unanswered, and all she can do is scream, desperately grabbing for a fading Lena’s hand. Everything is growing fuzzy at the edges. Alex feels suffocated by the darkness, the emptiness threatening to replace her memories, her happiness. To replace _ Lena. _

She doesn’t _ want _this anymore. She wants to correct her mistake. 

“I want to wake _ up!” _

* * *

_ “Hey, did you see that?” _

_ “Huh? See what?” _

_ “I swear I just saw her move a little bit.” _

_ “You probably imagined it. Maybe if you stopped smoking while we do this—” _

* * *

Lena is hunched over a microscope in the lab at the DEO, eyebrows scrunched together. She isn’t wearing a lab coat, or protective goggles, or even _ gloves, _ like Alex has always nagged at her to wear. 

“I dare anything in this lab to hurt me,” Lena had said the first time Alex walked in and saw her in nothing but a tight, revealing dress with her hair down. 

“Lena, that’s not practical,” Alex had countered, coming to stand beside her. At the time, that had been the first exchange between them that had come the closest to an argument. Something that was barely even a squabble. 

“You’re staring again,” Lena says, breaking her out of her trance. Alex looks up to find her smirking at her from over the microscope, jotting notes down in one of Alex’s journals that she’d left here by mistake earlier. 

Alex grabs at her hand. “They’re erasing you, Lena,” she warns. 

“Come here,” Lena says, beckoning her forward with her finger, peering back into the microscope. “Come look at this… Extraordinary,” she mumbles. 

“Lena, focus!” Alex snaps, jarring Lena enough for her to raise her head and frown. “I hired them. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t want them to erase you anymore.” 

Lena steps towards her, palm warm against Alex’s jaw, thumb brushing against her cheekbone. “Calm down, honey,” she consoled, green eyes full of warmth. “It’s alright. Just come analyze these slides with me.” 

Alex tears herself away from Lena, pacing the lab. “I need it to stop! I need it to stop before I wake up and don’t know who you are anymore!” 

Just the thought makes her feel like her lungs are about to explode, and she slumps against one of the tables, taking in quick, panicked breaths. Lena approaches her slowly, an eyebrow arched. “Alright, well… Tell them to cancel it, then, sweetie.” 

“It’s not that easy,” Alex argues, shaking her head. “I’m— I’m asleep. I can’t tell them anything.” 

Lena rolls her eyes. “Always so cynical, Director,” she tisks, turning away. “You never want to try anything new, you never have.” 

“What? That’s not true,” Alex frowns, defensive. Lena shoots her a doubtful look from over her shoulder. “I try a lot of things!”

“Oh, please. Remember all those times I tried to get you to taste caviar and you refused, like the stubborn person you are? Then you tasted it and you loved it.” 

Alex grimaces at the memory. “I hated caviar.” 

Lena gasps, horrified. “Don’t tell me you’ve been lying to me about liking caviar this whole time?” 

“Lena, that’s not—” She groans, rubbing a hand over her face. Lena just stares at her expectantly. “Okay, fine. You want me to try? I’ll try. Here.” 

She pulls her eyes wide open with her fingers, willing herself to see anything other than the ceiling of the DEO above her. And then for a brief, fleeting moment, she’s looking up at her apartment ceiling instead. The Lacuna equipment is just barely in her field of vision, and she can hear what sounds like voices drifting through her apartment. 

She’s looking back at the DEO ceiling a second later, Lena watching her with a cocked eyebrow. “It didn’t work,” she groans. “For a second, it did. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I couldn’t move. It didn’t work.” 

“Well, technically it _ did _work,” Lena starts to say, but Alex shakes her head. 

“Okay, fine. It worked. But I couldn’t do anything while I was there,” she explains, running a hand through her hair. 

“Then what do you suggest?” 

“I don’t know!” Alex blurts angrily, making Lena’s eyebrows shoot up. She blows out a harsh breath. “Don’t look at me like that. You did it, too! You erased me first.” 

“I’m sorry,” Lena says, already becoming translucent. 

* * *

It’s raining, the icy grey sky grumbling restlessly from above as cold, fat drops pour down over the city with a roar. They pound against the windows of Lena’s penthouse, thunder rumbling and lightning crackling from above. 

They are lying side by side, huddled together on the couch under a blanket. Alex has her reading glasses perched on her nose and a book in her hand, one she’d plucked from Lena’s shelves, _ The Age of Living Machines. _

Lena presses against her. Her skin is smooth, warm from being beneath the blanket, and the hand that isn’t holding her book is trailing down Lena’s bare thigh. “I loved you on this day,” Alex finds herself speaking quietly, tracing random patterns on Lena’s leg. “ I loved this memory. The rain, the book. Us just… being together, even without speaking.” 

When Lena looks at her and smiles, warmth settles over them. “So, I have an idea,” she says, shifting slightly so she’s turned more towards Alex. 

Alex’s eyebrow quirks up, a cocky smirk forming. “Does it involve sex?” 

Lena slaps her shoulder gently, eyes rolling in exasperation. “I’m _ serious, _ Alex. I have another idea for how to solve this problem. Suppose you want to keep your memories of me from being erased by the people you hired. Well, that just means you would have to take me somewhere they wouldn’t go, right?” 

“Yeah,” Alex says slowly, dragging the word out. “Yeah, I mean, I guess so?” 

“See, right now, this is a memory of me. The time you wanted to fuck me on the couch like there wasn’t a perfectly good bed right over there.” Alex cringes at the way Lena says it, but she just continues on without flinching. “They’re going to erase this moment then. So maybe if you take me somewhere else, somewhere I don’t belong—”

“We could hide there until morning,” Alex finishes her sentence, eyes widening in realization. “They wouldn’t be able to find us. It wouldn’t be on the mental map.”

Lena snaps her fingers, grinning at her proudly. “Exactly.” 

“God, Lena, you’re a genius!” Alex blurts happily, reaching over to hug her. Lena only scoffs, waving Alex’s compliment away with her hand. 

“Well, we already _ knew _that.”

As the penthouse begins to crumble and dissolve, Alex focuses hard on the rain pounding on the window. As the roof collapses, the rain comes down on them, and then—

* * *

_ “Shit, it’s not erasing. She just went off the map.” _

_ “What?” _

_ “I said she went off the fucking map! Just— shit, give me a second.” _

* * *

There are fragments of an old memory, of a wet sidewalk and raindrops falling around her, of two feet in black rubber rain boots stomping and splashing into a puddle. Jeremiah’s voice somewhere in the distance, low and gruff, calling out for Alex to get back inside before the storm gets too bad.

“Alex! Come on, get in before your mother loses her mind.”

A giggling Alex rushes into the house, stopping just shy of the hallway before kicking off her wet, muddy rain boots and leaving them by the front door when her father reminds her with a stern, _ “Boots!” _

When she enters the house, Eliza is bustling around in the kitchen, and Lena is standing in the middle of the living room, vacuuming. She’s in a pink and yellow floral dress, and is looking down at it in disgust. 

“It worked!” Alex tells her, but Lena just frowns, running her hands down the dress. 

“God, _ what _am I wearing? Where are we? And who exactly am I?” 

Alex settles down onto the couch. “We’re in Midvale, and this is my childhood home. You’re Miss Abbot. She was the nanny when I was younger, so I must be about five in this memory. Mom let her go a few days after my sixth birthday.” 

“Well, you certainly don’t look five,” Lena counters, gesturing to Alex’s body. She’s right — while in the memory Alex is supposed to be a young child, she still looks like an adult, at least to both her and Lena. 

Before she can say anything about it, the overwhelming urge to _ cry _suddenly washes over her, and she snaps her mouth shut. Guess that’s what she gets for going to a memory so far back. “I don’t want to lose you, Lena.” 

She murmurs this over and over until Lena kneels down and hugs her, slightly hesitant. “Oh, sweetie, you won’t lose me. You won’t lose me. This memory isn’t fading, I think we’re safe.” 

Alex looks around. The house has not vanished yet, and Jeremiah is walking into the room, carrying a glass of water. 

“I really want him to pick me up and hold me,” Alex says with a frown, glancing at Lena. “It’s weird how strong that desire is.”

Lena ignores this. “You’ll remember me in the morning,” she tells Alex, staring at her intently, focused. “And you’ll come by to see me tomorrow and tell me about us and we’ll start over. Okay? You’ll remember.”

She kisses her. Alex smiles into it, nodding, her eyes burning. “Okay,” she whispers against Lena’s lips. “Okay, okay.” 

[But her luck has never been that good, and things have never been that easy.]

They’re not as safe as they think. The memory is ripped away from her in an instant, without so much as a warning, and Alex is left desperately clutching onto Lena’s hand as she starts to go.

_ No, _ she thinks as she clings to Lena as tight as she can. _ Not again. You’re not slipping through my fingers again. _

“We have to go!” she shouts. But there is nowhere to go, Alex realizes as she looks around furiously. The house is gone, as is the sidewalk where she’d stomped into the puddle. “Shit!” 

Their surroundings are blurring. Lena’s hand is cold in her own, both of them running, with Alex practically dragging her along. Then Lena huffs, tripping in her heels. “Why don’t you just hide me somewhere deeper, like humiliation, for God’s sake,” she complains, struggling to stay alongside Alex.

The words make Alex freeze, and Lena slams into her back with a surprised yelp that Alex knows she’d never admit to making in real life. “What the hell are you—”

“Humiliation,” she repeats quietly, looking back at Lena. _ “Humiliation. _That’s it. You’re right.” 

In an instant, the house is back and both of them are lying in Alex’s childhood bedroom. There is a flip phone showing a photo of Vicky Donahue in a swimsuit in Alex’s right hand, her left hand slipping under the waistband of her panties, fingers rubbing furiously at her clit. 

“Alex!” Lena cries out in surprise, but Alex ignores her. _ Humiliation. Humiliation. _

“I don’t want to be here either,” Alex grumbles, voice strained, jaw clenching and unclenching in dreadful anticipation of what’s to come. “I figured if I chose a memory that I’d tried my hardest to forget, it would work. And it did.”

She still remembers the shame, the guilt that had taken over her on this day. It’s one of the memories she’d forced so far back that it’d taken her nearly thirty years to realize she was gay. After this, she hadn’t been able to look Vicky in the eyes for weeks. 

The door swings open without so much as a warning, startling both Alex and Lena. “Alexandra, sweetie, have you done your— _ Oh!” _

Alex’s face burns as Eliza blinks at her, immediately turning away and avoiding eye contact. “I’m sorry, Alex, I— We’ll talk in the morning.” 

The door is shut behind her mother, and it takes Alex’s paralyzed body a few long moments to process what happened before she’s able to move again, immediately shoving her face into the pillow and groaning. “Fuck!” 

_ That _was the other reason she’d pushed this memory so deep down.

The bed shakes with Lena’s sympathetic, quiet laughter. “Oh, sweetie,” she cackles, hand reaching out to rub Alex’s shoulder comfortingly. It doesn’t help one bit. 

Alex sighs into her pillow. “Lena, don’t.” 

“I assume poor Eliza tried to forget this memory as well—”

_ “Please _ shut up!” she groans, moving her face from the pillow so that she can look at Lena.

But Lena isn’t there. 

“No!” It didn’t work this time either. Alex slams her fist into the wall, her hand going right through the plaster as the house falls apart. 

* * *

_ “Got it! Okay, we’re back in.” _

_“Thank God. Mierzwiak_ _would’ve killed us if we fucked this up.” _

* * *

“I want to take you out. On a date.” 

This is the first thing Alex says to Lena when she enters her office right after work, oozing all the confidence of her Director Danvers persona. She comes to a stop in front of Lena’s desk, resting against it with her hands. 

Lena glances up from her computer. “Don’t you have a girlfriend, Director?” she questions, dark lips pursed. 

She’s talking about Becca. Which— no. Becca is not her girlfriend, and Lena needs to know this. “No,” she says, just as Lena stands up to pour herself a drink. “She’s not my girlfriend, and even if she was, it wouldn’t have lasted long.” 

“Oh?” Lena asks, still with her back turned. “And why is that?” 

“Because I’ve already met you.” 

Lena whirls around, and this time when she looks at Alex, there’s anger in her eyes. It takes Alex aback so much that she takes a step back, catching herself on one of the chairs in front of Lena’s desk. “What exactly is your endgame here? Is it so that you can tell people you’ve fucked a Luthor? Is it to spite Kara? What is it?” 

Alex’s mouth opens and closes for a few seconds, no words coming out. Lena just scoffs. “I’m not the type of person people simply fall in love with, Alex. They don’t trust me, nor do they really want to know me, so I believe I’m pretty adept at seeing through people to their true intentions.” 

Alex steps forward, gaining her confidence back. “I want to.”

“Do you?” Lena counters, an eyebrow raised. And Alex wants nothing more than to scream at her, to convince her that she’s wrong, that yes, Alex _ does _want to know her.

Instead, she locks eyes with Lena and doesn’t do that. She tears her eyes away, looking around the office solemnly. The colors and shapes are already beginning to smudge like fresh ink on paper. “I remember that speech pretty well,” she sighs. “I remember this moment perfectly, and I didn’t let you push me away that day, either.”

They’re near the end. Alex doesn’t want it to go.

“It’s going to fall apart,” Lena reminds her softly, but Alex shakes her head in conscious denial. 

“No. It’ll be different this time. We can just… start over.” 

Lena leans in close, so close that Alex can feel the warmth of her breath on her lips. “Remember me.” She reaches up to cup Alex’s cheeks, and Alex lets her eyes slip shut automatically, leaning into the gentle touch. “Remember me. Try your best. Then maybe we can.” 

* * *

Alex has always been a fan of the beach, ever since she was young and Jeremiah had taught her to surf back in Midvale. Even after they’d all thought he died, Alex had still gone out on the waves each morning at dawn, when they were at their best, and surfed until the sun was high in the sky and the beach was filling up with locals. 

After moving to the city, she hasn’t surfed in ages. It’s why when Kara suggests an impromptu beach trip on their way back from breakfast, that Alex jumps at the opportunity. “Yes! Let’s do it!” 

When they arrived at the beach on the edge of National City, there were already people there, tourists and locals alike. Classic rock music drifted through the air, mixed in with the sound of laughing and chatting.

It’s where she sees Lena for the first time, down by the surf, face hidden by a large hat to protect her from the sun. Despite this, Alex is drawn to her all the same, even without being able to see her whole face.

And then, it happens. 

“Kara? Kara Danvers?” 

Alex’s eyes widen as she whips her head over to look at her sister, who’s staring back at Lena with as much surprise as Alex feels. She adjusts her glasses, smiling brightly. “Lena? What are you doing here?” 

“A friend of mine is in town for a visit,” Lena explains, motioning towards a tall brunette sitting by a bonfire, a young girl beside her. “Her daughter wanted to see the beach.” 

Kara nods. Alex’s eyes flicker between the two women until they land on Kara, gesturing at her subtly. Kara jumps then, grabbing Alex’s arm. “Oh, Lena! This is my sister, Alex.” 

Alex reaches her hand out. “Alex Danvers.” 

“Lena Luthor,” Lena says, taking Alex’s hand in hers. “It’s a pleasure to finally put a name to the face of the infamous sister Kara is always gushing about.” 

Beside them, Kara blushes and grumbles something about how she’s not _ always _gushing, but Alex doesn’t pay any attention. She’s trapped in place by the way Lena’s smiling at her. “Right. And you— you’re Lena Luthor.”

Lena’s lips purse slightly in what Alex assumes is disdain, but she covers it quickly with a nod of her head. “Yes, I am.” 

“I’m sorry, I just— before you took over L-Corp, I followed your progress in grad school when you had been working with Jack Spheer on trying to cure diseases with nanotechnology. I’m… kind of a big fan of your work, if I’m being honest. A few years ago I read your thesis on the regulation of—”

“Okay, wow,” Kara cuts in, laughing at Alex’s enthusiasm. “Okay, Alex, you’re starting to sound like a bigger nerd than me.” 

Alex glares at her with burning ears, but Lena only laughs softly. It makes Alex’s head spin. “It’s quite alright. I must say, it’s been a while since I’ve received, well, any _ good _recognition. I’m flattered.” 

Kara pipes up again, leaning forward and patting Alex on the shoulder. “Alex went to Stanford to get an MD/PhD.”

“Did you now?” Lena asks her, intrigued. Alex barely registers the way Kara leans in close to her ear, whispering a quick _ ‘good luck’ _ before speeding off, leaving her alone with Lena without any warning.

“I’d like to hear more about your own research,” Lena tells her. “If you don’t mind?” 

“Yeah,” Alex nods. “Yeah, no, of course. We can, uh— we can walk.”

By the time the sun is beginning to set, she and Lena are sitting together alone on the beach, a short distance from everyone else, relishing in the quiet around them. Alex is sipping on a can of beer, and she’s hyper aware of the way Lena’s knee is touching hers, aching to reach out and touch her.

She’s dragged back to reality as she listens to the waves crash against the shore. Lena is silent beside her as she speaks up. “I had no idea that when I met you on this day, that you’d become so important to me. That I’d love you as much as I did. As much as I _ do.” _

The sky is a canvas painting of orange and purple. Alex stares at it as Lena looks over at her. “I did,” she says.

Alex frowns. “What?” 

“I did. I knew you’d become a big part of my life from the first moment I saw you.” 

“I don’t believe that,” Alex laughs, shaking her head. Her frown deepens, more out of confusion than anything else. “I mean— no way.” 

But Lena nods. “I did,” she insists, green eyes full of sincerity. “Because the first thing you recognized about me was the good work I had done. It wasn’t that I was Lex Luthor’s sister, or anything about my family at all. Not even Kara did that. The only reason I met her in the first place was because she came to question me about the Venture explosion all those years ago. Wondering if I was like Lex.” 

Alex glances at her, shrugging. “I knew more than anyone that it didn’t matter who your family was. It didn’t make you the same as them. Kara being Supergirl, I… always felt _ less than. _ Just because my sister was a superhero didn’t mean I was. I knew it was the same with you and Lex.” 

The sky fades into a dark blue, the sun disappearing beyond the horizon. Lena rests a hand on her knee. “This is it, Alex. It’s going to be gone soon,” she reminds her.

“I know.” 

“What do we do?” 

Alex looks down at her hands. Her stomach is in knots already. “Enjoy it. While we can.” 

* * *

They end up at an empty beach house.

Alex knows it’s empty because she peers inside, every light dark inside, no movement. She also knows it’s empty because when she wrenches open the back door, no alarm goes off, and no one comes to shoot her in the face for breaking and entering. 

“Alex!” Lena hisses as she steps inside, carefully surveying the rooms. “What are you doing? You’re a _ government _agent!” 

Alex rolls her eyes. “This is a memory, remember? Even if we got caught, it’ll be erased by morning.” Even saying the words makes Alex’s heart ache, but she shakes herself out of it. There’s nothing she can do about it now. “Come on. I know you’ve got to be freezing in that dress.” 

Lena stares at her with a blank expression; that’s how Alex knows she’s right. 

“Fine! But we’re only staying for a bit.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex mutters as she walks further inside the house, the floorboards creaking underneath her feet. She hears the door shut as Lena follows her. Making a beeline for the stack of shelves at the bar, Alex runs her fingers along the wine bottles, pulling some out to look at the labels. 

“What do you think, Chloe Rosé or La Marco Prosecco?” she questions, holding up both bottles. 

Lena’s eyebrows arch. She looks genuinely offended as she stares at Alex, an indignant expression on her face. “You’re asking me if I want wine that probably costs a grand fourteen dollars? Is that supposed to be an insult?” 

Alex clicks her tongue, brows furrowing as she looks at the labels. “I guess you’re right,” she mutters, as Lena brushes past her and enters the next room. 

Behind her, there’s a crashing sound as multiple wine bottles hit the floor one by one, the house trembling on weak foundations. A cold sense of dread seeps into Alex’s bones, and she clears her throat. “Uh, Lena?” 

Everything is fading. She’s losing this. The last one before she wakes up and no longer knows who Lena is. 

“Yes?” Lena calls from somewhere in the distance, her voice sounding more like an echo.

The roof goes first. It crumbles to the ground like it’s made of brown sugar, making the whole house shake. The walls are the next to go, cracking and splintering around them. Memories rush past her, brief flashes that are just out of reach, each of them slipping through her fingers and vanishing.

Alex heads for the door. “I think we should go.” 

Lena’s head pops out from the next room, a dark eyebrow cocked, jaw tensed. “Oh? Now you change your mind?” she snaps, like Alex has done something wrong.

The foundations shake beneath her feet, and suddenly there is freezing cold water rushing into the house, reaching up to her ankles. “Lena, really—”

“Then go,” Lena says. And it’s so simple, the way she says it, but it makes Alex’s chest tighten up so that she can hardly breathe. She freezes in her spot, defeated. 

“I did.” She’d walked right out the door that day, without even looking back. 

“I wish you’d stayed,” Lena tells her, and the words carry so much weight that Alex nearly crumples to the ground, on her knees in the rushing water. 

“I wish I’d stayed too.” God, she wishes she’d fucking _ stayed. _“I wish I’d done a lot of things. I wish I— I wish I’d stayed.” 

She isn’t looking at Lena anymore. She can’t. But Lena’s voice still reaches her, sounding more and more like an echo with every sentence that escapes her mouth, like they’re standing on the edge of a cliff, shouting into the distance. “You just left.” 

The tightness in her chest expands, spreading outward, paralyzing her. A strangled sob forces itself through gritted teeth and she throws her hands up, running them through her hair furiously. “I know. I just… walked right out the door. I was— I was scared.” 

“Alex Danvers, scared?” Lena scoffs, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Alex turns around, pressing a hand against a part of the house that’s still standing in order to hold herself up, knees weak with grief. “I don’t believe it.” 

“I was,” she assures her, nodding. She still remembers the way that fear had coursed through her veins like poison, the way she’d cried the whole ride home that night. “I was. You said to go and I did, and I was so scared because you meant it. You wanted me to go.” 

“I didn’t,” Lena tells her, as if that can do anything to help her now. “I didn’t want you to go, Alex. I wanted you to stay.”

“But I didn't know that, did I?”

The water is up to her knees now. “You erased me,” she reminds Lena, and although her voice cracks with agony, Lena doesn’t mention it. “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to lose this. I didn’t want to lose any of this, but you erased me first! That’s the only reason I did this!”

She doesn’t want to go. 

The water rushes in faster, and it forces her out of the house, leaving Lena behind. “I don’t want to go,” she repeats. 

“Then don’t,” Lena says. “Stay this time.” 

“I walked out the door. There’s no memory left. It’s done.” 

For a moment, silence. Then, “At least say goodbye this time. Let’s pretend we had one.” 

Alex’s hands come up to cup Lena’s face, eyes slipping shut, feeling Lena exhale against her lips. Lena wraps a hand around the back of her neck, bringing their foreheads together. “I’m going to miss you,” Alex whispers, tears sliding down her cheeks. 

Lena shakes her head. “You won’t. You won’t remember me.” 

“I’m going to find you. Again. I have to. This isn’t how we end.” She leans forward, pressing her mouth against Lena’s in a soft, languid kiss. When they pull apart, Lena lingers close to her face. 

“Meet me in Malibu,” she whispers, before her voice fades away just as the rest of the beach does the same. 

_ Malibu. _

* * *

_ “Alright, that was the last one. Give the doc a call, let him know it’s done.” _

_ “We made great time even with the delay, right?” _

_ “Oh, yeah. We might even be able to get home by sunrise.” _

* * *

When Alex wakes up, it is alone, tangled in cold sheets in a bed far too big for just one person, and the first thing she notices is the splitting headache she has.

* * *

“Let me just grab my mail and I’ll be right over.” 

“Alright. I’ll be waiting.” 

As she’s sliding the key into her mailbox, an elderly neighbor of hers approaches her with a knowing smile. “Hello, dear. Did you get good news today?” 

It’s only after she says that that Alex realizes she’s been smiling so wide it’s practically splitting her face open. She clears her throat, embarrassed, as she swings open the door to her mailbox. “No, Miss Abernathy,” she answers, reaching in and grabbing the contents from the box. “I just… met someone.” 

“Well, she must be special, if she can get you to smile like that,” her neighbor points out, poking Alex in the shin with her cane. “Have a good day, dear.” 

“You too!” Alex calls back as she turns away, shuffling through the mail as she heads for her bike. It’s mostly the usual mail she gets, bills and magazines, a few coupons. But there’s something else in the stack this time, something that catches her attention immediately. A small paper package addressed to her from a place she’s never heard of before.

_ Probably some real-life spam mail, _Alex thinks as she tears open the package. 

Immediately, a small black cassette tape falls out. Alex frowns as she turns it over to see a note taped to it, the handwriting a messy, rushed scrawl, but still somewhat easy to read. 

_ “Dear Alex, _

_ We’ve met but you don’t remember me. I worked for a company you hired to have part of your memory erased. You’ve erased your two year relationship with Lena Luthor.” _

Alex drops the whole cassette tape in her hands. Suddenly, the air grows a lot colder than it was a few moments ago, and it’s as though Alex can feel the pounding of her heart through every pulse point in her body. 

She picks the tape back up with trembling fingers. It has to be a joke. Kara or Winn is probably messing with her, somehow knowing that she’d met Lena and deciding to have some fun. There’s no way this can be real.

Either way, she doesn’t end up going to Lena’s. Instead, she walks back into her apartment in a daze and inserts the tape into the TV.

_ My name is Alex Danvers. I’m here to erase Lena Luthor. _

It’s strange, hearing herself speak words that never came out of her mouth. Or rather, that she never remembered coming out of her mouth. It’s almost as if she’s listening to someone else talk about Lena this way, especially when the voice says things like _ Luthor _with so much disgust it makes her sick. 

But no. It’s her, speaking recklessly from a place of such despair, of such anger, and she feels herself crumple onto the couch, knees giving out. 

_ Why don’t you tell me a little bit about Lena? _ It’s a man’s voice she’s never heard before speaking now. _ Tell me about your relationship with her. _

Alex’s recorded voice sounds hesitant to answer. _ Lena was… complicated. Closed off, most of the time. She got distant a lot, she could never fully open herself up at first. I might as well have been talking to a fucking wall, near the end. _

A strange, empty feeling spreads through Alex’s body as she listens to herself talk. In the tape, it seemed like she went from hesitant to angry in a span of a few seconds. Once she started talking about Lena, she couldn’t stop. 

_ I don’t think she ever trusted me, after finding out about Kara… It was never the same between us— and, fuck. No. I can’t blame this on Kara. It was us. We were the problem. We were always the problem. It’s not her distrust of Kara that broke us up, it was her distrust of me. What kind of fucking relationship is that, if we don’t have any trust? _

“That’s not true.” 

Alex’s heart jumps into her throat at Lena’s voice. She’d been so focused on listening to her own description of their failed relationship that hadn’t even heard the other woman come in — which, in any other situation, would have been concerning for a skilled government agent — but here she is, standing in the middle of Alex’s apartment in the same thing she’d been wearing earlier in the day. 

“I didn’t distrust you, not for a second. According to my own tape, you were the _ only _one I trusted,” Lena continues.

Alex rises slowly. “But you told me to go.” 

“I didn’t want you to, apparently,” Lena rolls her eyes as if Alex should’ve known this. As if it was obvious. Maybe it was; maybe Alex had just been too blind to see it. “I thought you’d stay. I thought you’d fight for me, for us.” 

“I would have,” Alex insists. “Lena, I— I _ did. _ You had already erased me.”

“I know.” Lena shuts her eyes, reaching up to rub at her temples. “I know.”

_ I mean… shouldn’t the good times outnumber the shitty times? I don’t know. I thought we could work it out. I thought she loved me, but she— she just erased me like I meant nothing to her. How could she do that if she truly loved me? It’s fucking bullshit. I’m so angry. That’s Lena, through and through. Selfish. Something happens and she shuts down again because she can’t face the fact that this is just how life is sometimes. _

“I don’t… I’m sure I didn’t mean that,” she tries to explain, when Lena’s fallen silent beside her. “I was angry, and people say stupid things when they’re angry.” 

“No, it’s alright,” Lena says, face blank. 

_ What a loss to spend that much time with someone, _ Alex’s voice continues on the tape, _ only to find out that she’s a stranger. I should have expected it. I mean, this is Lena we’re talking about. It was always going to end up like this, wasn’t it? I knew that going in. _

It’s only then that Lena stands, so quickly that she almost knocks the glasses over on the coffee table. “I should go. I don’t think I can hear this. Take care of yourself, Alex.” 

She’s moving towards the door, but Alex wraps a hand around her elbow to stop her. Immediately, Lena tenses up at the touch before softening just a second later. “Wait,” Alex pleads. “Just… wait for a while. Don’t go.” 

Green eyes shine with unshed tears. Lena breaks eye contact with Alex as soon as they start to fall, but Alex’s hand comes up without hesitation to wipe them away. 

“We both heard what we said on those tapes.” Lena tilts her chin up and takes a shuddering breath, “Do you honestly believe there’s even a point in continuing this any further if we know where it is headed?” 

“I think so,” Alex nods resolutely. “Yeah, Lena, I think so. Who cares what we heard? What matters is what we feel _ now, _ isn’t it?” 

Lena looks away, gritting her teeth. “It’s going to change. I’m not perfect, Alex—”

“I can’t see anything I don’t like about you right now!” Alex argues, insistent.

“But you will!” Lena shouts, wrenching her elbow out of Alex’s grip and stepping back. “Obviously, you will! You’ll think of things not to like about me and I’ll get irritated with you and we’ll always clash, because that is just how it is when we’re together. We’re too alike, and the honeymoon phase won’t last forever. That’s how it’ll always be.” 

Alex shrugs. She’d rather have Lena, both the good and the bad, than not have Lena at all. 

“So we get together. The honeymoon phase ends and we see each other for who we really are. And guess what, Lena? That’s always going to happen, no matter what, no matter who we end up with. We can’t stop it, and you know that. There must be a _ reason _why we met each other again, don’t you see that?”

Lena stares at her, and for a long moment, Alex is terrified she’s going to walk away again. But then—

“Okay,” Lena finally says, and she nearly collapses in relief. “Okay. Let’s try again.” 

She’ll get the chance to _ stay _this time.

“Okay.”


End file.
